Blowin' in the Wind

I had picked my boyfriend up from the airport yesterday and was just in some sort of weird funk. I think he could sense the bitchiness coming on, so he was more than willing to crash in bed while I went out for a quick 3 miler. I decided to do a neighbourhood run since nothing outside of Barrhaven (Woodroffe/Fallowfield/Prince of Wales) is 3 miles. I could've potentially done a Fallowfield and Merivale out and back, but it was rush hour and I didn't feel like having a large audience.

I started out at a slow jog, which I think was a big mistake. Usually I walk for a bit before starting the jog/run, but I knew I was crunched on time. My left Achilles tendon was a bit tender and the peroneal was sort of sore as well. I carried through at a slow pace but things definitely felt like they were unraveling a bit. By the end of the run (which ended up being 3.6 miles due to a slight detour), my left knee was giving me trouble too. I'm hoping the aggravation had to do with the fact that a major portion of the run involved going on oscillating sidewalks.. up, down, up, down. I generally run flat or gradual uphill/downhill, not pavements. The wind was also ridiculously strong (gusting to 30 kts) and it felt like an uphill the entire time! I guess people don't get fit from running flat courses constantly, though. It was tough to come to terms with.

I took an ice bath when I got home which seemed to help the initial pain, but a day later, things are definitely sore. I wish my massage therapist was in to do some tendon work but she's on vacation in Vancouver until the end of the week. Sigh.

I went to the Running Room tonight and stocked up (finally) on a pair of new split shorts, a hydration belt, some new socks and an Achilles support, as well as an IT band support. I'm guessing that the knee pain was IT band related, so I'll see if any of this stuff helps. I've decided to finish my mileage for the week, and then do a week of cross-training only. I remember Stew Smith's plans involved a cross-training week about 4-5 weeks into a program as that's the time people get injured the most and I think I've hit that week. I may even just finish the rest of the week cross-training if nothing feels better and restart the 14 mpw goal in 2 weeks.

As an aside, I finally got my surgery date: September 29. It's a lot sooner than I was planning, but I guess it's better to get rid of the pain while I can. I'm going to try to hit a comfortable 15 mpw by the time I go into surgery. I reckon I'll have about 2-3 weeks recovery time, so the goal is to start back out at 10 mpw, increase by 2 mpw for 3 weeks (to 16 mpw) then continue on the original plan. Of course, all this is very up in the air, but that's the plan for now.

We'll see how tomorrow's run goes. Aiming for a short 2.5 mi run on the treadmill to not stress the tendons too much, but I do want to test out this new "hardware".

Update soon! x